Secrets
MR. HYNES WAS ALREADY at the curb in his folding chair, waving his tiny American flag at passing cars, when Raymer, freshly showered, emerged from the Morrison Arms. As he ducked under his own crime-scene tape, it occurred to him that he, the white chief of police, and Mr. Hynes, an improbably patriotic old black man, were the only two residents who had scoffed at the law. Of course the other tenants, an eclectic assortment of derelicts and petty thieves and deadbeats, were taking advantage of the relatively luxurious accommodations offered by the Holiday Inn at the town’s expense, but still.
Seeing Raymer approach, Mr. Hynes started to rise, but Raymer motioned for him to remain seated. “How many varieties you got today, Mr. Hynes?”
He grinned broadly, enjoying their long-running joke. “Fifty-seven. Same as always.”
“Well, that’s sure a lot of varieties to come up with day after day. How do you manage it?”
“Hard work. Just have to keep after it when other people quit.”
Quit, Raymer thought. That was today’s first order of business: write his resignation letter, give his two weeks’ notice. Without the garage remote, his chances of discovering the identity of Becka’s boyfriend were now officially nil. If that asshole Dougie didn’t like it, too bad. After the Hilldale fiasco, he was all done listening to Dougie, who had proven unreliable. But since he probably didn’t exist in the first place, this was like saying that Raymer himself was unreliable, which wasn’t exactly news.
“How’d you make out with that pretty black gal I seen you with last night?” the old man wanted to know.
“She works for me, Mr. Hynes. We didn’t make out at all.”
“Send her on over here, then. You don’t want her, I’ll take her. She could be my fifty-eighth variety, you know what I mean.”
“I’ll mention you’re available.”
“I like the look of her. Not all skin and bones like some of ’em. I thought it was her you was talkin’ to earlier.”
Raymer had no idea what this was in reference to. “Talking to when?”
“Hour ago, when you come in. I hear you goin’ on about this and that, so I go over to the window thinkin’ it might be her you was talking to, but instead it’s just you arguin’ with your own self.”
“I think you’re exaggerating, Mr. Hynes. I might have been mumbling, is all.”
“You need to get you a real person to talk to, is what I’m sayin’. How’d you get all filthy like that?”
“Grave robbing.”
“Awright, don’t tell me. See if I care. I got secrets, too. Everybody got secrets.”
“Anyway,” Raymer said, “I’m glad to see that snake didn’t get you.”
“Not yet,” he cackled. “I’m too quick for it. Time it stands up, I’m gone. You ’member Satchel? I’m quick like him.”
“Do me a favor,” Raymer said, resting a hand on the man’s bony shoulder, “and don’t sit out in the sun too long today. It’s nice now, but it’s supposed to get hot again.”
Mr. Hynes promised he wouldn’t. As he was getting into the Jetta, his radio barked, followed by Charice’s voice: “Chief?”
He glanced at his watch. Her shift didn’t begin for another hour. This didn’t bode well. “I’m sorry, Charice,” he told her. “But I don’t want to talk about last night, okay? Can you respect my wishes on this? If I offended you—”
“You seen the paper?”
“Which?”
“The Dumbocrat.”
“No, why?”
“You made the front page.”
So someone had seen them out at Hilldale. This boded even worse. “Charice,” he said. “We put him back just like he was.”
“What? Who’re you talking about?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“The photo of you climbing down off my porch. On the front page of the damn newspaper. The man that lives in the flat below me? He’s a photographer. Works for the Dumbocrat. Must’ve run to the printer with that photo in time to make the morning edition.”
“Oh,” he said, remembering the bright flash of light that had momentarily blinded him as he was shinnying down the column. He’d thought it was just a distant lightning flash, reflecting off the low clouds. “Shit.”
“Right. I’m about to lose my job, aren’t I.”
“Of course you aren’t. Listen, I’m heading in now. Be there in five.”
“The mayor wants to see you.”
“Lovely.”
“You’d better come up with a good story.”
“I’ll tell him I got struck by lightning.”
“Too far-fetched.”
“It’s true. I was struck by lightning.” Okay, not on her porch, but he might’ve been if he hadn’t climbed down. “Now there’s something wrong with me.” Seared into the palm of his hand, where he’d grabbed the florist’s card, was the perfect image of the staple used to attach it to the green cellophane. He’d tried his best to scrub it off in the shower but managed only to inflame the spot. Now it itched as if there were, just below the skin, a real staple. “Something else wrong with me,” he corrected.
“Like what?”
“I feel…funny.”
“Funny odd or funny ha-ha?”
“There’s this constant buzzing in my ears. And I’m having strange thoughts.”
“For instance.”
Like, maybe I’m in love with you? He couldn’t say that, of course. He tried to think of another example, something odd but not so deeply bizarre that she’d conclude he’d lost his marbles completely.
Before he could come up with anything, she asked, “Is someone with you? Your voice sounded weird just then. I mean, apart from what you said.”
Wait, had he spoken out loud? Actually told Charice he was in love with her? Just a few minutes earlier Mr. Hynes accused him of talking to himself. Could it be true? “Umm…that’s the other thing,” he admitted. “These random thoughts that are just there in my head? Apparently I say some of them out loud.”
“I’ma add that to my list,” she said. “All this weird shit. In fact, I’m doin’ it right now ’fore I forget. Chief says…he’s in love with me.”
“You left out the word ‘maybe.’ ”
“You write it down your way, I—”
“You’re doing it again, Charice,” he said.
“Doing what?”
“Using that black voice.”
“I’ma write that down, too.”
“Last night you—”
“You were different last night, too,” she said, all trace of the dialect now gone.
Suddenly their evening together, which had begun so well and ended so catastrophically, was with him again. He’d promised himself to put it out of his mind, but here he was thinking about it anyway, awash in humiliation. “Can I ask?” he said. “What happened?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Charice.”
“That phone call I got? Was from Jerome. Asking me to take him to the hospital. He thought he was having a heart attack.”
“Is he okay?”
“They kept him overnight for observation. A panic attack, they think. He’s had them before.”
A car went by, tooting its horn at Mr. Hynes. When Raymer looked up, a man was just coming out the back door of Gert’s Tavern with a bag of trash in each hand. A car was parked next to the Dumpster where the Mustang was vandalized yesterday. From where Raymer sat, only one taillight and a section of fender was visible, not enough to identify the make or model. From where Mr. Hynes was sitting, though, the whole car would be in view, and it came to Raymer again that he might well have seen whoever keyed the ’Stang.